Without Tianenmen Square in 1989, that clean sheet project would have been the Super-7, the predecessor of FC-1 and the F-7MF paper project.

The Super-7 was Grumman’s design leveraging the Chinese industry at the time. The majority of parts in the design would come from the J-7 while the engines and avionics and some of the weapons would have come from the US/UK. It would have been the lightweight fighter China was looking for and would probably have been powered by the Ge-404.

How the Chinese aerospace industry/PLAAF would have developed if 1989 had been different is a common exercise to Chinese aviation enthusiasts.

The Western-influenced projects from the 1980s — K-8, JH-7, J-10, Super 7 and Peace Pearl (J8IIM/D/E/F) — still form the bulk of the PLAAF’s modernization programs with the one glaring exception of the J-11/Su-27.

If 1989 had ended differently, then the J-11 program would not have happened.

We would have seen the bulk of the PLAAFcomposed of an upgraded J-8II on the heavy end and the Super 7 on the light end both possibly armed with Aspide/Sparrow derivatives BVRAAMs.

The J-10 would have been developed with a P&W F-100 series turbofan. It would still be in the medium-sized single engine fighter role we see it today.

The K-8 especially would have sold even better than it has without having to change its original Garrett engine.

From an old Salamander book The Chinese War Machine (1979.)

The “F-12” as Western experts imagined it at the time. There had been a debate for years on whether it simply never existed or a paper project that was never fully realized.

I think it is generally believe today that the F-12 designation is Western confusion — we now know that “J-12” was given to a lightweight fighter from Nanchang testflown in 1970.

The MiG-23 based F-12 imagined in the photos would be the Q-6 paper project.

A smart man is the one that respects and a good Historian proves not with conjectures

Good. Then don’t use conjectures like Russian internet stories and stories influenced by your ethnic pride in Israel, Strevitel. These are the facts:

1. Israel denies passing the Lavi to China,

2. All five Lavi prototypes are in Israel, not China,

3. the Lavi is a failed project dependent on American parts and technology and could not be inducted in Israel without American participation; if the J-10 were the Lavi, China would not be able to make this failed problem work, especially since China is embargoed by the US,

4. Israel’s aviation industry is inferior to China, otherwise we would see Israeli aircraft competing with Chinese ones on the world market. There are no aircraft from IAI competing with F-7G, FT-7, K-8, Y-12, MA60, Y-8. etc. The one Israeli advantage is complete access to American technology,

5. the J-10 flies in China and nowhere else in the world.

All five are facts, not conjectures based on conspiracies and “Russian reports.” Strevitel, it is your ethnic pride that makes you use conjectures, not us.

It is your belief that your people is somehow better than the Chinese that makes you conjectured that a plane that only flies in China is a copy of a failed program of an inferior aviation industry dependent on American aid and technology which China has no access to.

Israel is not inferior to China specially since China is not powering series aircraft without russian engines yet, rest of engines are copies Israel can make copies.

Tell me what Israel has on the aviation market. I don’t see the Lavi in the IAF and I don’t see anything else from IAI. When was the last Kfir made and sold?

The Israel also cancelled the IAI Lavi due to US pressure but also under their own economical problems.

Israel cancelled the project because it was an American plane, based on American technology and American parts. If it were any less American, Israel would simply have built it.

Here’s where the Lavi to China logic of the conspiracy theorists gets really stupid: Israel is afraid of the US so it cancels the Lavi. But it is not afraid of the US when it sells this very plane to China? Huh?

If you’re afraid enough of the US to cancel the project, you’d be doubly scared in selling the aircraft to China.

If you’re not afraid of selling the aircraft to China, you certainly shouldn’t be afraid of building it on your own.

Let’s face it, the Lavi was NEVER a viable project. It wasn’t viable even for Israel who has American parts and aid up the wazoo. So it CERTAINLY wasn’t viable for China who is embargoed from American parts.

See this small detail a five million country can have space laucher build by IAI, AWACS built by IAI, latest gneration fighters and jet airliners, latest SAMs

Small detail? Actually a not-so-small detail that this country has access to and is completely dependent on American technology.

If it had any ability at all, it would have gone ahead and built and inducted the Lavi. It couldn’t because everything Israel needed came from the US.

In the current issue, the author argues that IAI acted as a consultant, just like General Dynamics consulted for the Ching Kuo, to design an aircraft for China’s needs, or Dassault was consulted on the Novi Avion. Even SAAB contracted Rockwell, MBB, and BAe for support in various areas for the Gripen. I don’t see why certain forum members seem so opposed to the idea that IAI, SIBNIA, or Mikoyan might have been contracted to support J-10 development.

No one is opposed to the idea of that China had consultants. If Mig-23/Strevitel had treated the J-10 like the Gripen then no one would have bothered contradicting him.

Because if the Gripen doesn’t become an American plane just because it used American consultants then why should the J-10 become Israeli because of someone imagined the Lavi going to China.

But even that premise is patently false. The Lavi NEVER went to China All five prototypes remain in Israel. So why should a few drawing in Hebrew have such an impact?

China’s aviation infrastructure is entirely different from Israel. It’s like giving a kosher recipe in Hebrew to a Chinese restaurant. The Chinese cooks not only can’t read Hebrew but they can’t make it if they could since they don’t have the supplies or the rabbi in place for kosher meat.

If Israel cannot even produce and induct the Lavi for its own air force, why in hell would this American-dependent design suddenly work for China? Israel doesn’t have a full aviation industry. It depends on American technology, parts and financing. So where would the Chinese get those American parts?

Now, it would be FAR more plausible for American and British consultants to working in China and designing schematics for the Chinese infrastructure.

There is a reason why there were the JH-7, the Super 7 and Peace Pearl projects even though the British and Americans were far more experience aircraft designers than the Israelies.

Those American and British projects leveraged China’s own industrial infrastructure.

The Lavi is exactly the opposite. It is a plane so dependent on American parts that Israel could not build it without American agreement. It didn’t leverage the Chinese aviation infrastructure at all.

It is time we stop believing that a “design” would allow you to suddenly materialize an airplane. The real world is still made out of heavy machinery and metal. Not some “design” on paper. There are millions of designs in China. But until the 1980s, the Chinese infrastructure was not in place for anything beyond the J8II.

What the J-10 was built, it was because the Chinese infrastructure was in place for it. Not because of some drawings in Hebrew.

SOC,

I’m almost in total agreement with your post, BUT one member at this forum who worked on the LAVI project claimed it was american and british engineers which formed the majority of the design group. This version would make more sense considering israel had never designed a airplane before. What most reports state is israel’s help with avonics which was israels strong department considering all the EW and avonics for their own planes they developed

Quote:
I just happened to come across this forum by chance, but you may be interested to know that I was one of the design engineers working on the Lavi project in 1983 thru 1986. I am not Israeli, I am a British aerospace structural designer, and there were nothing like 1,500 engineers on the project. There were about 500 in total, mostly British, with very few Israelis.

The Israelis mostly headed up groups, but relied heavily on British and American design expertise. Since the Lavi was cancelled some time ago, and most Israelis were made redundant, I cannot see how China would need any input from Israel.

Key forum Aviation. member goof
Key forum aviation

Now this is actually FAR more plausible.

The UK already supplied China with the Spey for the JH-7. The US were helping China with the Peace Pearl and Super 7 project. In the 1980s, China was an ally against the USSR.

On the news, foreign reporters said the forces in Bangkok are actually very small though situated in prominent areas. They counted about a half-dozen tanks and some APCs.

But you can’t ignore the fact that the paper design represented something more advanced than China was seemingly capable of at the time.

Please what can paper design do for you? I can draw a paper design of a hi-tech ceramic toilet bowl. And I’ll write the instructions in Chinese (or Hebrew, if you choose) and give it to you or your neighbor. I guarantee that you two would NOT be able to make that toilet bowl on your own. Not just because you won’t be able to understand my chicken scratches but also because you simply don’t have the infrastructure to shape and fire ceramic.

In the same vein, you can give a paper design of the F-16 to a tribe of bushmen or Yemen and it’ll stay a paper design. But for countries that has the infrastructure in place for things as such as the F-16, they already have the design part as well.

Drawing crap on paper is ALWAYS easier than financing and installing the massive physical machinery and infrastructure needed to actually make those “designs” into reality.

The idea is to design items that YOUR infrastructure could build. The Lavi was designed around American technology and American parts. It’s less than useless for China and its infrastructure. Useless, unless China gets a hard copy, a prototype. Then it’ll be able to reverse engineer all the American pieces.

So even if I gave you my ceramic toilet bowl design, you would discard it for another design of a bowl made from wood or sheet-metal because your basement workshop could probably handle that.